On emergent organization designs, future of work, and the impact of the digital era..

Thursday, November 5, 2015

The Top Six Things Organizations Must Do to Enable Emergent Learning

“…changes in mindset
are more important than changes in hardware or software.”

~Steve Denning

What is
common across the learning modes and methods mentioned?

Social
learning via an enterprise collaboration platform

Mobile
enabled learning accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device of the user’s
choice

MOOCs
which straddle the line between social learning and e-learning with learner
communities

While an
organization can facilitate these, the onus lies with the users/learners. These
are essentially “pull” and collaborative learning modes and cannot be imposed. These
forms often intersect with one another, and are used in various combinations
depending on the organization’s need, users’ comfort and the capabilities
required to design the ecosystem. Having said that, a major percentage of
organizations today are striving to put in place one or more of the above-mentioned
modes and tools of learning. This is leading to a shift in the role of the
L&D department – from managers and disseminators of formally designed programs to facilitators and enablers of collaboration and communities. I have
written about the new skills that L&D and HR needs to make this transition
in my posts here
and here.
In this post, I am going to explore six key requirements necessary from an
organizational and leadership standpoints to make collaborative and emergent learning
work. But first,

What is emergent learning?

Emergent Learning is a condition and
an outcome of organizational culture, strategy and purpose.

It arises out of a combination of networked
leadership, HR and L&D efforts, and meaningful work. It leverages the powers
of networks and social platforms, and the affordances of mobile and cloud to
build an interconnected and continuously learning organization. When fully
realized and supported, emergent learning provides autonomy, mastery and
purpose to learners and agility, adaptability and resilience to organizations. It
empowers learners to build their personal learning networks (PLN) and personal
knowledge management (PKM) by leveraging technology to connect a distributed
and diverse workforce. Emergent learning by definition takes place in the
workflow; it is always contextual, collaborative, and beyond the norms of
formal learning. Emergent learning cuts across formal organizational structures
and siloes and brings out the inherent tacit knowledge and ongoing collective experience
building a shared journey for all concerned. In this context, it is important
to remember that technology is an enabler, an amplifier and connector. It is
there solely to serve the purpose of the users, to empower them to explore and
engage.

Thus,

Emergent learning
= Nurturing Evolving Human Potential by giving individuals the power to learn
the way they want to.

When any
organization or institution shifts from a hierarchical, top-down mode to a
horizontal, peer- and user-driven one – be it in management or learning – culture
plays a huge role in the success or otherwise of the endeavor. “The DNA of
“peer trust” is built on opposite characteristics – micro, bottom-up, decentralized,
flowing and personal” (The
Changing Rules of Trust in the Digital Age). This is perhaps the biggest mind
shift that organizations have to make in the digital era and to facilitate an environment
of continuous learning. While the pace of change and the need for constant
re-skilling has adeptly shifted the onus of learning away from institutions to
individuals, this comes with a new set of responsibility and change in mindset.
IMHO, these are the six key changes organizations need to make to enable emergent
learning.

Shift from networks to communities. The affordances of ubiquitous connectivity,
pervasive mobility and cloud, and the prevalence of social media ensure that
organizations today are connected. However, facilitating networks is not enough
albeit it’s the necessary precursor to building communities. As Henry Mintzberg
points out in the HBR article, We Need
Both Networks and Communities. “At the organizational level, … effective
companies function as communities of human beings, not collections of human
resources.” The article resonates with my belief that organizations today must
foster trust-based peer communities to encourage collaboration and cooperation.
It is in communities that knowledge is exchanged and challenges solved.

Give up hierarchical, command and
control mindset. While
we are wont to blame the management models of the Industrial Era and their
continuing prevalence today for the lack of trust and transparency we see in
many/most organizations, we have to understand that this model served its
purpose when scalable efficiency and productivity were the desired outcome. Today
in the face of rapid change and technological evolution, this same model is
failing us; it’s becoming a roadblock to seamless collaboration and flow of information.
Managers schooled in the hierarchical system find it difficult to give up
control. Even the physical design of organizations (although many are changing)
with its corner offices, and other visible symbols of hierarchy reinforce the
order. It’s not enough to espouse a belief in an open culture; it requires redefining
the way leadership functions and their external manifestations.

Make employee engagement an outcome,
not the goal. IMHO, it’s
an organization fallacy to make employee engagement the goal. Employee engagement
is not a set of isolated and random activities. It is an outcome of a number of
collective activities, organization culture and overall employee experience. These
experiences begin even before an employee joins an organization and continues till
the time they leave, and even thereafter in the firm of alumni communities. Every
step of an employee’s journey wrt the organization from the interview process
to project allocation to interactions with management and peers adds up to
define the culture which in turn drives employee engagement or lack thereof. Emergent
learning is a key outcome of employee engagement. Engaged employees feel valued
and respected; this leads them to collaborate and cooperate in the interest of
the organization as well as their own development. Disengaged employees neither
learn nor share.

Make the purpose bigger than shareholder
value creation. In
the new world, shareholders’ value will continue to exist but not as a primary
driver for organizations that seek to attract, retain and build a community of
talented individuals or make an impact on the world. An authentic and purpose-driven
organization that is seen to give back to society is more likely to attract and
retain employees. Purpose and shared value creation are strong drivers of
learning inspiring people to share and collaborate towards the achievement of a
bigger vision.

Stop viewing individuals as
replaceable resources. Even today, well into the second decade of the knowledge era and the
creative economy, organizations still treat individuals as resources. While no
one would clear an interview if they said, “I am just like everyone else, and
have no unique qualities,” it is precisely what organizations strive to do once
you are in.Kill the uniqueness and
make one fit a mold. And then perversely complain that people are not creative,
innovative, or using their brains. Basically, it’s a dichotomy! What organizations
need and want are being fundamentally curbed by their very systems and
processes created to uphold uniformity, predictability, and homogeneity. The leaders
and managers are as much a victim of the system as the employees. The systems
and processes established 200 years ago were created to augment human brawn
with machines. They are ill-equipped to support a world that revolves around
the uniqueness of the human brain. It calls for transformational leadership and
cultural mind-shift. Individuals treated like replaceable cogs will behave like
cogs; not self-driven learners.

Celebrate diversity in all aspects –
cognitive and otherwise. Learningand insight take
place when diverse thoughts and ideas collide. “I have never in my life learned
anything from any man who agreed with me,” Dudley Malone had famously said. And
it is partially at least true. Diversity and inclusion cannot only be a part of
HR policy anymore; it is necessary for the very survival of organizations as we
enter the VUCA world. Emergent learning cannot happen unless diverse ideas and
experiences find a place to converge and come together. Hence, the communities
that organizations facilitate – online or offline -- should consciously enable
the coming together of diverse individuals.

All of these
feel like massive changes and they are. I’ll go a step further and say that collectively
put together, these moves lead to transformation. Change is primarily tactical,
process-driven with a known outcome that one drives toward. Transformation is revolutionary!
It takes us from the known to the unknown in the nature of an explorer embarking
on a journey of discovery in a bid to find a new world. Here’s a telling
excerpt from an HBR article that I’ll end with:

“Change
management” means implementing finite initiatives, which may or may not cut
across the organization. The focus is on executing a well-defined shift in the
way things work.

…

Transformation
is another animal altogether. Unlike change management, it doesn’t focus on a
few discrete, well-defined shifts, but rather on a portfolio of initiatives,
which are interdependent or intersecting. More importantly, the overall goal of
transformation is not just to execute a defined change — but to reinvent the
organization and discover a new or revised business model based on a vision for
the future. It’s much more unpredictable, iterative, and experimental. It
entails much higher risk. And even if successful change management leads to the
execution of certain initiatives within the transformation portfolio, the
overall transformation could still fail.” We
Still Don’t Know the Different between Change and Transformation